SERPENT’S REACH BY C.J. Cherryh

A nightmare shape danced. into the lights before them, left again: Warrior stayed with them, but the jolting on this stretch was such that it chose to go on its own feet.

By the map, this was the only road. They were on the last of their fuel, that which they had brought in containers, having used .the stored power and both main and reserve tanks. They might nurse a kilometre back out of batteries after the fuel ran out. Cab light went on. Merry was checking the map again, counting with his fingers and making obvious conclusions.

“It’s six hundred to go,” Raen said, “and it pulls too much. We’re loaded way beyond limits and we’re not going to do it.”

“Map shows good road past the depot.”

“Easier walking, then.” Raen looked to the side as a black body hit the door, scraped and scrambled its way to the roof of the truck. Warrior had decided to ride again. Six hundred kilometres more: easy on a good road with an unburdened truck. As exhausted men would walk it . . . days.

“Could be fuel there,” Merry offered.

“One hopes. If we get that far.”

“I’ll drive again, sera.”

“We’ll change over at the depot. Rest.”

Merry turned the light out. He did not seem to sleep, but he said nothing, and in him, in the two with them—likely in all those men in the rear—there was evident that familiar blankness. They lost themselves in that, and perhaps found refuge.

She had no such. There was a stitch in her back which had been growing worse over the hours, and fighting the steering aggravated it; the right shoulder ached, until finally she chose to let the right hand rest in her lap, however much that tired the left. The jolt of the crash, she reckoned. Pain was something she had long since learned to ignore. A stoppered bottle sat beside her; she moved the right hand to it, flipped the cap with her thumb, took a drink of water, capped it again. It helped keep her awake. She worked a bit of dried fruit from her pocket, bit off a little and sucked at that: the sugar helped too.

The road worsened again, after a little smoothness; she applied both hands for the while, relaxed again when it passed. Imagination constructed a picture of the men in the back, jammed in so that some must constantly stand, or lie on others, whose muscles must cramp and joints stiffen, all jolted cruelly with every hole she could not avoid and every lean and lurch of the turns.

Figures flicked past on the odometer, a red pulse far too slow. The fuel registered lower and lower, most gone now out of the last filling.

Then the road smoothed out on a fiat high enough to see no flooding. She kicked them up to a better pace, and Merry came out of his trance and shifted position, causing the other two men to do the same.

“Should be coming up on the depot,” she said

Merry leaned to take a look at the fuel and said nothing.

There was a scraping overhead. A spiny limb extended itself over the windshield. Warrior slid partially down, and Raen swore at that, for they had no margin for delays. It gaped at the glass, insisting on her attention, and at the realisation it was urgent her heart began to beat the faster.

She let off the accelerator, coasted, rolled down the window left-handed. Warrior scrambled off when they slowed enough, paced them, the while the headlights picked out only dusty ruts and high weeds.

“Others,” Warrior breathed. “Hear? Hear?”

She could not. She braked, threw the engine to idle, quieter.

“Many,” Warrior said. “All around us.”

“The depot,” Merry said hoarsely. “They’ve got it.” Raen nodded, a sinking feeling in her stomach.

“Get the men out,” she said. “They’d better limber up, be ready for it, be ready to dive back in on an instant. Third thorax ring, centre; or top collar-ring, if they don’t know. Make sure they understand where it counts.”

Merry bailed out, staggering, felt his way around to the back. Warrior was dancing in impatience beside the truck. The two men in the cab edged out and followed Merry.